This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2005 by Cecelia Tichi

All rights reserved.

Grand Central Publishing

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

First eBook Edition: April 2009

Originally published in hardcover by Mysterious Press

ISBN: 978-0-446-56128-0

For Bill, my partner in crime

Acknowledgments

A book is a team effort, and I thank Bill Tichi first and foremost for unflagging zest for plot and being first reader. Susan Robinette, mystery reader extraordinaire, helped keep an eye on the big picture, and Thad Davies cued the time travel, while the Nashville chapter of Sisters in Crime is the best mix of readers and writers. I thank my agent, Meredith Bernstein, for keen editorial advice as well as adroit agenting, and my Mysterious Press editor, Beth de Guzman, for the level of editing that’s often said to be a thing of the past. Not so: Beth eyed the manuscript line by line and challenged this author to meet the higher standard. Bill Betts’s copyediting of the finished manuscript has been scrupulous, and I am grateful for his eagle eye. Like every writer across the broad spectrum of mystery fiction, I thank the readers who support our death-dealing enterprise.

Chapter One

They say nighttime fog is romantic, but a woman walking alone on dark city sidewalks gets a Jack the Ripper feeling to the marrow of her bones. The streetlights cast a sick haze. You can’t see a damn thing in any direction. And footsteps are approaching right now—coming from behind, amplified in the fog.

I speed up, just three blocks from my destination on Marlborough. The steps get closer. A woman was murdered walking by the Charles River last month, less than a mile from here. Point of fact: the steps pound harder, faster, a man’s stride. He’s broken into a run, catching up.

Or closing in? Should I thrust at the groin with my umbrella? Smash his nose with the heel of my hand?

Or is it two people running? I hear many footsteps, so it’s hard to tell. One or two? The murdered woman was struck from behind while walking, bludgeoned to death. I veer to the curb and stop, silent, invisible, I hope. The soles strike hard enough to crack cement.

Then a noise erupts in the fog just feet from where I stand—a sudden grunt, a scuffle. A cry of pain sucked in and stifled. Muffled? Gagged? A gargling sound too. It’s over in a flash. A sound bite.

I don’t move. It feels like forever. The steps recede, but with a new sound—a scraping. Dragging a heavy bag? A body? Every muscle in my body clenches.

What did I hear?

I force myself down Dartmouth to Marlborough, fighting fear as I hurry along a vapor trail of odors—exhaust fumes, balcony barbecues. Also garbage, pet waste, mildew.

At 9:06 p.m. this third of May, I meet Meg Givens at the Marlborough townhouse front door. Huge relief just to get here. Sensibly, she drove. We stare at this house in somber silence, and my pulse rate hikes back up. Neither of us wants to be here tonight. No one comes to greet us. There’s no welcome mat beneath our feet. Not a single lamp glows from any window, upstairs or down. A small campaign sign for the Massachusetts governor’s race pokes from the tiny front garden, but the whole townhouse is dead black, and I don’t expect the interior to be a bit cozy and welcoming, not with the task ahead of us.

Meg’s Lanvin wafts in the thick air, along with hints of something rotting. Compost? Sewage? Rain starts falling, thick drops mixed in the fog and mist. Should I tell her about the footsteps? The sickening sound, the dragging? As a Realtor, Meg found a tenant for my upstairs flat, but she’s not a close friend. Why didn’t I drive tonight?

“I appreciate your willingness to do this, Reggie,” she says. “So let’s get going.” Meg keys in. We step into the pitch-black interior, and a sweet, sharp odor hits my nostrils.

Gas. “Meg, gas. Let’s get out of here.”

“They should’ve left a light on.” Her nails scratch the wall like chalk on a board.

“Out. Now.”

“Here, got it.” Click.

Light flares to reveal a front room sectional sofa in hot orange and wall-mounted hunks of scrap metal. No, they’re armor: a breastplate, a visor, a mailed glove. It’s like a dismembered knight. Then I see the chandelier, a massive work of medieval blades, halberds, swords, knives. Some are fused, others swing free. The whole fixture hangs from slender wires. We’re ankle-deep in a rug that needs mowing with a John Deere.

“My God, a hall of armor. What do I smell?”

“It’s sandalwood, Reggie.”

Not gas, but sandalwood. The joke’s on me. I’m wound way too tight from the weather and the footsteps and noise…and those ghastly blades that look ready to crash. “Meg, I think somebody just got mugged.”

“Muggings in the Back Bay are fairly common, Reggie. Should’ve warned you about the scent. I recommend citrus air fresheners, but this couple loves sandalwood. It’s the night noises that wake them up. Random noises.”

“That’s it, Meg—some disturbing noises that I heard when I was walking over here.”

“You walked? Reggie, I forget you’re new to the city. I’ll drive you home. I insist. And this shouldn’t take us long. The owners are out for dinner. They prefer we leave by ten. Let’s get to it.”

I wrench my mind to the task at hand. Let go of that sidewalk incident, forget the weaponry of the Middle Ages, focus on the here and now—which feels, however, like a setup for failure. I tried to duck out of this, but Meg begged me. “You say these people hear slamming doors?”

“Hard slams, Reggie, always late at night. The noises started the week they moved in. I sent our firm’s best handyman. Every door latch works perfectly. I hope you can help. Are you ready to start?”

“I’m ready, but are you certain there’s no object or artifact left in the house from previous owners?” She shakes her head no. As I’ve told her, I work hands-on. To start off, I need something tangible to hold. Bare-handed, it probably won’t work.

“Just give it a try, Reggie.”

Closing my eyes, I try to clear my mind and concentrate on rhythmic breathing. And I wait. We wait together. Five minutes? Fifteen?

Meg’s knuckles crack. She whispers, “How’re you doing? Any vibes?”

“Nothing so far.”

“Take your time. I’ll lower the light.” She turns the dimmer, and the room goes sepia. Minutes pass.

“Anything?” I shake my head. “Maybe if you sit down? Or walk into other rooms? Are you concentrating?”

“I’m concentrating.” But I sound as tense as I feel in this nineteenth-century Boston townhouse whose owners think it’s haunted. That’s why I’m here this gloomy evening. I’m supposed to ID the ghost.

The fact is, I sense nothing but a mix of sandalwood and Lanvin. Maybe there is no resident ghost. Or maybe my sixth sense is blocked, since I’m both empty-handed and distracted by the sidewalk episode. In either case, no vision, no spirits.

Meg twists the dimmer down to brownout and stands close. “Let me prime the pump. I’ll tell you some terrible things, Reggie. These quaint Back Bay houses the tourists love—the slate roofs, the ornamental ironwork, the old brick—the naive tourists think they’re so charming. So do our clients.”

Her voice drops low and gets grainy. “How wrong they are. Dark secrets haunt these houses. We Realtors know the true stories of Back Bay murders. Daggers, Reggie, and poisonings from tonics laced with mercury.”

Is she making this up just to coach me?

“Imagine this, Reggie: under the Victorian facades, under the stiff collars and lace, are crazed opium addicts, jealous younger brothers cut from parents’ wills. Fratricide, parricide. A cousin in formal evening attire trampled by a carriage horse. A beloved uncle strangled. On a night like this, Reggie, angry spirits can stir. They can slam doors. And psychic powers can summon them. You, Reggie, can hear them if you concentrate.”

I try. I imagine a rearing carriage horse, the uncle whose eyes pop as the killer crushes his windpipe. I picture it all. So would you. Which doesn’t make it psychic.

“You don’t feel anything?”

“Wait—” Behind closed lids, I see pricks of light and hear a sudden whoosh. Ghost? No, the ventilation system. “Meg, my sixth sense is vacationing.”

My laugh sounds brittle. Wrapped in her own troubles, Meg can’t possibly know why I’m on edge. It’s not only the sidewalk scare in the fog but also my entire new Boston life. Or, as my businessman ex used to say, the whole enchilada.

Stifling her disappointment, Meg runs a hand through her dark brown hair. Her face is heart-shaped, dark eyes quick. She’s wearing a purple dress with a brooch shaped like a festive red hat, oddly jaunty in this somber scene. “It was worth a try. Anything to block a lawsuit.”

“You really think they’d sue? For ghosts?”

“Or disturbing their peace, whatever. The wife is convinced the house is haunted. They paid top price in last year’s hot market and spent big bucks renovating. A lawsuit could drag on for years and cost a fortune. As the listing agent, I could be named as a defendant. Even if they don’t sue, they could smear our firm. The husband is a new player in big development deals in the city. They’re political people. They host fund-raisers. You saw the yard sign outside for the primary.”

We move through the dining room, and suddenly, I recognize the pattern in the wall covering: neat rows of clenched fists. “Aren’t these the fists of the Black Power movement?” She nods. “They papered this room in Black Power salutes?”

“This paper was custom-milled in France.”

“Are your clients black?”

“He is. They moved in two months ago, even though the kitchen’s still not done. Here, sit down a minute while I write them a note.”

We’re now in the kitchen, a construction zone of tile and stainless steel. I verify that all kitchen door latches do work. “The new owners are the first to complain about the slamming, right?”

Her pen stops. “Why do you ask?”

“A house can have a history.”

“Reggie, the whole Back Bay is historical.”

“Let me ask this: I won’t say ‘haunted,’ but is the house notorious for unexplained incidents? Do the Realtors gossip about its ‘dark secrets’?”

She pauses and taps the pen. “Nothing specific, but for some reason, this house goes on the market every few years. For Realtors, it’s a merry-go-round with a brass ring. The insider joke is, who’s next to grab the sales commission?”

“What do the sellers have to say?”

“When they leave? The usual, job transfer, out-of-state move.”

“No compaints about night noises?”

“A seller wants a good price, Reggie. And ‘ghost’ isn’t on the disclosure sheet.” Meg meets my gaze. “Some of the Realtors are … shall I say, a bit superstitious? One of our younger agents did some research on the history of the house, and we teased her because she got so obsessed and moody and complained about cold and chills. Bad for business, I told her. We called her Igloo Sue.”

“What did she find out?”

“We never knew. She met a pilot and moved to Dallas, one of those whirlwind romances. Personally, I think the problem is the style of the house. It’s the only neo-Medieval on a block of Italian Renaissance. It doesn’t get enough light on the first floor. That’s my theory.” Meg finishes the note and manages a grin. “Guess you’re not a ghostbuster psychic, Reggie.”

“Guess not.” My faux buoyance hides a certain angst. Not about this Marlborough house in particular, but my health as a psychic. True, this gift has bruised and scraped me raw, scarred my arm, nearly killed me, yet it has provided a surge of energy the NFL could use in Super Bowls. The care and feeding of my sixth sense is topmost priority.

But on that sidewalk, I felt plain fear, and in this house, nothing. At the moment, I’m a psychic flatliner who can’t handle the city on a foggy night.

So what? you ask. So first thing tomorrow morning, I’m discussing a homicide case with Detective Francis Devaney. He’s counting on the newfound psychic ability that recently put me in a working relationship with the Homicide Division of the Metropolitan Boston Police. No, it’s not a paid position. I’m an unofficial adviser. The reward is beyond a Wall Streeter’s comprehension: quite simply, it’s adventure beyond my wildest dreams. Me, Reggie Cutter, ex–executive wife and twenty-five-year authority on ensembles for ladies’ luncheons, volunteer committees, banquets, teas, corporate galas. I tell you, as the ultimate makeover, helping cops solve a murder beats a face-lift by a light-year.

For the past month, Devaney has waited while my wounded arm healed from my “rookie cop” adventure. Well, my arm is now hoisting ten-pound free weights, and I’ve counted down the hours to tomorrow’s talk. Devaney’ll offer me a psychic’s deputy badge, so to speak, and I’ll salivate like Pavlov’s dog. I’m just that eager. But if I blank out, I’ll be sidelined. He’ll be polite and distant. “No hard feelings, Reggie.” “Of course not, Frank.”

Oblivious, Meg clicks her ballpoint and reaches for her briefcase with a pro’s nimbleness. “My car’s at the corner. Maybe lunch next week,” she says. “And love that green jacket, Reggie. Bet it’s terrific in decent light.”

“I like your purple too, Meg, and your brooch.”

“It’s my Red Hat outfit. You must know the Jenny Joseph poem about wearing purple and a red hat when a woman gets older? It’s about breaking free.”

“Vaguely.”

“It’s a great women’s group. You have to be over fifty.”

“Not quite yet.”

“We’ll welcome you. You’ll love us. It’s a fun bunch. I’m flying to this year’s convention. I’m looking for a hard-shell hatbox for the overhead.”

Outside on the stoop, I fumble with my umbrella as Meg reaches to close the front door. Neither of us can explain the next moment. Meg’s arm is outstretched, fingers ready for the knob. Before she can grasp it, the door starts to move. We watch it, standing still as two statues. Neither of us touches the door, but both of us feel a sharp cold draft. All by itself, the massive front door swings shut with a hard slam.

Chapter Two

At 8:11 a.m., Devaney arrives, a burly man with a barrel chest and graying hair cut short. Blue eyes, crooked nose. “Reggie, I’m early.”

“Detective Frank Devaney, come right in.”

He fills the room in his tweed sport coat and a mustard tie with ovals like slide specimens. His usually ruddy cheeks are a bit colorless, like the morning.

“How about some coffee? How about a muffin?”

“Water’s good,” he says.

We sit in the front room among my late aunt’s furnishings, the carved oak chest and hurricane lamps and shelves of books. I, in navy slacks and a cream blouse with light makeup and a natural-tone lipstick, have claimed the bentwood rocker. It was my late Aunt Jo’s, as was this South End townhouse condo here on Barlow Square, which I inherited and moved into after my divorce. Devaney commands the sofa, his feet flat on my favorite of Jo’s kilims. “Where’s the pup?”

“Biscuit’s with her co-owner. I’m now dog sharing.”

“Vacation time-share pets?”

Joint custody of Biscuit the beagle is a twisted tale. “My dander allergy,” I say, and let it go at that.

“How’s the arm? Soreness gone?” He tells me that the scar from my first crime case will fade. Actually, my dimple-size scar feels like a badge.

“And how’s the upstairs dentist?”

Is this cop-style chitchat? H. Forest Buxbaum, D.M.D., is the new tenant Meg found for the upstairs flat, which is a huge chunk of my post-divorce income, since my settlement stocks have crashed.

“The acid test, Frank, will be when I knock at Dr. Buxbaum’s door with a midnight toothache.”

He chuckles, asks about my kids.

“Jack’s still drawing a paycheck in Silicon Valley, and Molly’s probably got a sleeping bag in her sculpture studio in Providence. Both fine. And your boys, still overseas?”

“One in the desert, one at sea on a destroyer. Their mother wants them back stateside.” He rubs his eyes. “I do too. They’re adults, and still we worry.”

I nod. “They’re out on their own but still our kids.”

“Maybe I will take that coffee.”

It occurs to me that he’s stalling. He looks tired. “Frank, was a crime reported on Dartmouth Street last night at about nine? It’s on my mind. I heard footsteps and scuffling on the sidewalk in the fog.”

“Walking by yourself? Reggie, you’re not in a gated community anymore.”

I flash to the private subdivisions and security patrols of my past. Luxury prisons. “Frank, I will not live shut in behind locked doors in Boston. Anyway, I was driven home in that fog, with visibility of about four feet.” I say nothing about the slammed front door, which Meg and I murmured about in cryptic tones. “Every intersection was a war of nerves.”

He can’t disagree. “No, nothing reported on Dartmouth last night I know of. Nothing in the Back Bay.” Momentary relief. Maybe I only imagined the worst.

“You okay, Frank?”

His thighs strain the weave of his trousers. “Let me tell you, Reggie, no police department in this country thinks there’s enough personnel to do the job A to Z. The public wants blood, the media and politicians hammer you. Add a high-profile crime, like the Dempsey case, and everyone’s on us like buzzards.”

“Sylvia Dempsey.” The woman murdered by the river. Is this the case for my psychic sense? “Do you have leads?”

He shoots me a look. “Not you too.”

“A person ought to be able to walk by the Esplanade at twilight without being bludgeoned.”

“Forget ought.” He puts his mug down, takes a notebook from an inside pocket, and lays it on the coffee table between us. “Did you visit Boston in the crack years, Reggie?” This is not chitchat.

“Crack cocaine years? No.”

“In those years, Reggie, you stepped on crack vials like they were seashells on the beach. People set their families on fire. Mothers threw babies off roofs. The homicide rate went sky-high. We had a hiring freeze. Openings in the division, we couldn’t fill them.”

This is not about Sylvia Dempsey. This is something from the past.

“It got to be a blur,” he says. “Lowlifes and snitches angled for their own deals with cops and the DA. Notes got sloppy, and witnesses ran together in your mind. It’s probably hard for you to imagine that.”

Me? One autumn I served on three ball committees and mixed up the Baccarat and Tiffany and Waterford table favors. Tragic at the time.

“Don’t get me wrong, we got some real good convictions. We put away scum. But then a few particular cases—” He twists his wedding band. “You think those cases are over and done with, past history, but then you find an old notebook in a drawer, open it up, and a detail comes back.”

The notebook on the table—I know this now—is coming my way in minutes. It will be the psychic prompt. I’ll be expected to hold it and to feel the extrasensory vibes, though there are no guarantees. I say, “So you have doubts about some of those cases.”

“Yeah, doubts. I checked old notes and files on a case about a man named Henry Faiser. He’s doing twenty to life in MCI Norfolk for shooting a man we thought was trying to buy drugs. Faiser was twenty-one years old at the time. The victim was a white college student named Peter Wald.”

“Faiser’s black?” He nods. “This happened close by?”

“About half a mile away on a block near the turnpike on Eldridge Street. It’s a fancy condo high-rise now, but then it was three shabby houses and a body shop, which Vehicle Theft was already watching because they suspected stolen cars stripped for parts.”

“A chop shop.” Again, he nods. I get no points for knowing this lingo. The notebook lies untouched.

“Homicide was watching the house next to the shop. A crack house, we thought. A woman had died there, and the cause of death was heart failure, inconclusive as a criminal case. So we kept an eye on the house. The DEA was in it too.”

“The Drug Enforcement Agency?”

“Feds, so there were turf issues.”

“But Henry Faiser shot and killed Peter Wald. That’s a fact?”

“Faiser was known to be living in the house, and also known to be at the scene of the murder. A gun was found in the weeds in a vacant lot alongside the house. Ballistics proved it was the murder weapon. We had information that Faiser shot Wald in a dispute over a drug buy.”

“Faiser was a drug dealer?”

“A sometime dealer. Now and then.”

“So he had prior convictions?”

“He had arrests.”

“Not convictions?”

He shakes his head. “Charges were dropped.”

“For lack of evidence?”

He looks me in the eye, and the moment hangs. “Reggie, how many homicides do you think I worked so far in my career, twenty years a cop? Give me a number.”

“One hundred fifty.”

“Nowhere close.”

“Two hundred?”

“Over five.”

“Five hundred murders.” I am stunned.

“In the crack years, assault cases turned into homicides. I didn’t even see my wife, my boys. I missed their Little League, birthdays, our anniversary. Day and night we all worked, and we still got behind.”

“You think Henry Faiser did not kill Peter Wald?”

He sucks one cheek. “Does the name Jordan Wald ring a bell?”

“Wald? The candidate Wald?”

“State Senator Jordan S. Wald. He’s running for lieutenant governor.”

“Carney and Wald?” I recall the names on the yard sign at the “haunted” house. A memory kicks in. My late Aunt Jo talked about a State Senator Wald who pushed legislation for tough environmental standards. It was one of her many causes. “Is Wald the environmentalist?” He says yes. “Was Peter Wald related to the senator?”

“Peter Wald was his son. And into environmental causes too. An activist.”

“What was he doing there?”

“It was a drug scene, Reggie, a dealer on every corner.”

“Peter Wald was there to buy drugs?”

“We never knew for sure.” Devaney’s face says otherwise. He blinks and lowers his gaze. A moment passes.

“But there was pressure to find the killer,” I say. “And now, years later—how many years?”

“Thirteen.”

“Thirteen years later, you’re not sure.”

He pulls the knot of his tie, opens his collar but does not meet my eyes. “Let’s say as a veteran in Homicide, I know how easy it is to convict innocent people. Plus, there’s hepatitis in the prison system. Hepatitis B and C. It’s almost an epidemic. Prison health care isn’t exactly the Mayo Clinic.”

The nub of it: Henry Faiser is in prison for a murder he maybe did not commit, and he’s seriously sick. Years after the fact, Devaney is bedeviled by guilt. “So you’ve opened old files and”— I swallow hard, the challenge before me on the table—“and an old notebook.”

Here’s what’s next. Frank Devaney will put the notebook into my hands, ask me to hold it and to receive a psychic message. A feeling, an image, something. Will I have to tell him that my intuition is temporarily out of order?

My mouth is dry as he lifts the brown tooled-leather notebook, clasping it like a prayer book. “I’ll turn to the particular pages,” he says. “You can hold it. That’s what your Aunt Jo did. I always had to give her something to hold.”

My Aunt Jo, psychic number one, and me, the sequel, though I didn’t understand in childhood that my so-called overactive imagination was really a sixth sense. All those tests they put me through from third grade on—results inconclusive. No one would listen to my aunt’s explanation, which became the secret we eventually shared, aunt to niece.

“Frank, let me say something up front. I want to be honest. The fact is, I’m not sure I can help you today. In that fog last night… well, maybe my sixth sense fogged up.”

“Reggie, when it came to psychic abilities, your aunt was also modest. She never bragged. She never promised more than she could deliver. I appreciated that.”

“I’m not my aunt.”

“In the police department, sniffer dogs have more credibility than a psychic. If Homicide saw this, I’d never live it down.”

Perspiration dots his brow. My armpits prickle. The notebook is in my palms, clasped in my fingers. Eyes closed, I try to focus, reach deep inside, imagine that I am one with the notebook. I try not to hear Frank Devaney breathe.

What happens? I think random thoughts—my son’s birthday later this month, I’m out of bananas.

Reggie, prepare to admit the truth, I tell myself. It’s a setback but not defeat. There will be other cases. Frank Devaney will come calling again…so I hope. For now, honesty is crucial. “Frank, it’s not working. My sixth sense has come to a halt.”

“You’re sure?”

Eyes opened, I try to give back the notebook. He doesn’t take it.

“Maybe you need time.”

“Psychic messages don’t work on a timer.” I put the notebook next to him on the sofa.

His eyes look both hard and sorry. “You’re positive?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, no hard feelings on this one, Reggie.”

I force this out. “Of course not, Frank.”

Slowly, he pockets the notebook and rises. I, too, rise, feeling like I’m made of wood. We move toward the door. I am rollerblading on the edge of self-pity, a crime-case Cinderella in a patch of rotting pumpkins. I say, “Maybe the moral of the story is, be careful when you clean out your desk.” He frowns. “That’s when the notebook surfaced, right? When you rooted through your desk?”

“No. It’s when I got a letter from Henry Faiser.”

“From prison? Telling you that he didn’t kill Peter Wald?”

His nod is long, slow, reluctant. “He writes every once in a while. To say he’s doing time for somebody else’s murder, yes.”

We’re at the door. “Where’s the letter?”

Devaney pulls a small envelope from his inside pocket. It’s addressed in the block letters of children and terrorists. “See for yourself.”

I take the envelope, open it, unfold the single sheet, and read, “…wrong man… bad evidence…if you are a moral detective you must care and act…do something.” At the bottom, in huge letters: “HELP ME.”

A short letter, it’s a disclaimer and a plea. It contains no real information, not one fact. I hold it at the edges between fingers and thumbs, reading and rereading top to bottom until I can recite those words verbatim, “…wrong man…moral detective…do something.”

Devaney waits patiently. I’m still reading. Then there’s a shimmer, an optic flash. The moment hastens but stands still. Yes, I stare at lines of ballpoint ink, but through the paper I see a scene develop. The letter in my hand has turned as transparent as cellophane, and on the other side something swirls. Like a storm. Coils of red heat. The paper takes me there. It’s an oven, an inferno.

I now pretend to read. I am posing with the letter, merely posing. Devaney thinks I pause to grasp the words on the page, but he is mistaken. My left side is hot. Below the rib cage is a burning. It’s painful. The hot coils sear and flash. It takes everything I’ve got not to cry out, to stand as if normal. The fiery storm scene engulfs me.

“Reggie, are you okay?”

“Okay,” I say, voice from an echo chamber. “Hot—”

He takes the letter from my hands. I lean against the cool door frame. The coils begin to fade as he folds the letter, tucks it back in the envelope. No flames crackle in his mind.

“Reggie, you okay? Are you sick?”

I shake my head. “Just a feeling in my side, like something hot. Terribly hot.” Then I feel embarrassed. Suppose he thinks it’s a hot flash?

Devaney leans close, looks hard at me. “I have something to tell you. The house, Reggie, the crack house where Henry Faiser lived—”

“Yes?”

“The day we arrested him, it went up in flames. The chop shop and all three houses on the block burned to the ground. Two bodies were found—homeless squatters. We never solved it.”

“Oh.”

“You felt that, Reggie. The heat. The letter did it. It means you can help, Reggie. Just like your aunt. I’ll get to work on this and call you.”

Relief on his face. Relief in my soul. Bingo! Psychic is open for business. Hoo-ray. Saved. Deputized.

Yet my rib…my rib is still hot. Moments pass as Frank Devaney welcomes me to the team. As I sign on gladly as his silent partner.

Even after Devaney leaves, the rib is still hot. When my whole self is willing and able and eager, why this blaze? Listen to the body, say the experts. Suppose I do? Suppose it warns me, as I plunge ahead, not to walk through fire?